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Inna

Inna had died on Sunday, on Easter.
Zhenya has a lump in his throat can’t find the strength to say anything. I don’t have a lump, nor do I have tears. Only the desire to slap upside the head everyone who complains about their life.
I realize almost nobody will read the story of Inna’s family.
Because the situation was so hopeless it was hard to believe. The frightful diagnoses, illnesses, incurably ill children, disabled parents, and war.
And I’m not angry you don’t read such stories.
That’s normal. I wouldn’t read them either. I would have preferred to not know about them, but life decided otherwise.
Those things from which I turned my head away my whole conscious life is now right in front of me.

Inna and son Egor.

The lady with the boy is Svetlana Stepanovna Munladze. She lives with two grandsons in Lugansk. It’s been a long time since she’s left her apartment–she has progressive polyarthritis and terrible leg pains. She walks heavily and very slowly. Even during the shelling of 2014, she sat in the stairwell, “re-reading all the books on a stool.” Didn’t have the strength to come down.
Her husband is partly deaf, and Svetlana Stepanovna was worried he might not hear incoming shells. But the house was not hit, though all the windows were shattered.
No electricity for six months, everyone cooked outside on a fire.
A year ago the husband died. Couldn’t take the war and everything else that befell the family.
The woman has three boys, and also grandchildren.
Inna, on the first photo, is the wife of her son Andrey. She had cancer. I won’t describe how it happened. It’s not important right now–everything went badly, including the stroke she had during a surgery. At that time Andrey, the husband, had a heart attack.
The two younger children are disabled.

Egor is the boy on the photos, born 2009. He’s seven and never cries. He only laughs when in pain. He can’t walk, only crawl, and can’t control his bowel movements and in general understands little. Constantly needs diapers. He’s very kind, almost a puppy. He was constantly cozying up to Svetlana Stepanovna. And didn’t understand a word of what we were asking him. “Water on the brain, paralysis of lower extremities.” He could only nod his head and look in different directions.
Masha was born in 2014, she’s Inna’s younger daughter. She’s now two, and she also can’t walk. Mom is with the father, the son of Svetlana Stepanovna. Egor is at the grandmother’s, the family can’t cope.
Svetlana Stepanovna picks up and changes Egor by herself. Though it’s practically beyond her strength. He’s heavy, and her legs ache.
If it weren’t for the second son’s granddaughter who lives with her, “she’d have died right here.” The granddaughter cooks, cleans, and shops. She studies psychology. The home is clean, no odor, in spite of the ill children.
They live off grandma’s benefits and child subsidies.

Inna had cancer that metastasized, including to the head and spine. Egor was sent to the grandmother, since the mother was in hospital getting treatment. I was unable to meet with Inna, but Zhenya said she was a very positive, life-loving woman. Can you imagine???
Until the end, she thought everything would work out, although one could write a long post on her illness alone. She smiled, didn’t complain, and didn’t blame anyone. She had two disabled children. The older kids are healthy and currently in Russia.
Until the end, Inna tried to care for the kids. She and her husband did not send the kids to a shelter, like many do.
It’s hard to blame people who give up kids “like that.” They will never change, they will always be “like that.”
It’s impossible to imagine.
Inna loved kids to the last.

I couldn’t bring myself to write about this family for a long time. I kept putting it off.
Because it was hard. So hard that I didn’t even know what to say.
But by the time I found the words, Inna was no more.

RIP

We brought medications, diapers, stool catchers for Egor, and food.

Zhenya brought the aid in February, when Inna was still alive.

Thanks to all who participates in our humanitarian aid! Thanks also to those who read those stories.
There’s no strength left to talk and write about such cases.